CHAPTER III - In the Helio-room
At six A. M.,
earth Eastern time, which we were still carrying, Snap Dean and I were alone in
his instrument room, perched in the network over the Planetara’s deck. The
bulge of the dome enclosed us; it rounded like a great observatory window some
twenty feet above the ceiling of this little metal cubby-hole.
The Planetara was
still in the earth’s shadow. The firmament––black interstellar space with its
blazing white, red and yellow stars––lay spread around us. The moon, with
nearly all its disc illumined, hung, a great silver ball, over our bow quarter.
Behind it, to one side, Mars floated like the red tip of a smoldering cigarillo
in the blackness. The earth, behind our stern, was dimly, redly visible––a
giant sphere, etched with the configurations of its oceans and continents. Upon
one limb a touch of the sunlight hung on the mountain-tops with a crescent
red-yellow sheen.
And then we
plunged from the cone-shadow. The sun, with the leaping Corona, burst through
the blackness behind us. The earth lighted into a huge, thin crescent with
hooked cusps.
To Snap and me,
the glories of the heavens were too familiar to be remarked. And upon this
voyage particularly we were in no mood to consider them. I had been in the
helio-room several hours. When the Planetara started, and my few routine duties
were over, I could think of nothing save Halsey’s and Carter’s admonition: “Be
on your guard. And particularly––watch George Prince.”
I had not seen George
Prince. But I had seen his sister, whom Carter and Halsey had not bothered to
mention. My heart was still pounding with the memory...
When the
passengers had retired and the ship quieted, I prowled through the passenger
corridors. This was about the trinight hour.[3] Hot as the corridors of hell,
with our hull and the glassite dome seething with the friction of our
atmospheric flight. But the refrigerators mitigated that; the ventilators
blasted cold air from the renewers into every corner of the vessel. Within an
hour or two, with the cold of space striking us, it was hot air that was
needed.
Dr. Frank
evidently was having little trouble with pressure-sick passengers[4]––the
Planetara’s equalizers were fairly efficient. I did not encounter Dr. Frank. I
prowled through the silent metal lounges and passages. I went to the door of A
22. It was on the deck-level, in a tiny transverse passage just off the main
lounging room. Its name-grid glowed with the letters: “Anita Prince.” I stood
in my short white trousers and white silk shirt, like a cabin steward gawping.
Anita Prince! I had never heard the name until this night. But there was magic
music in it now, as I murmured it to myself. Anita Prince...
She was here,
doubtless asleep, behind this small metal door. It seemed as though that little
oval grid were the gateway to a fairyland of my dreams.
I turned away.
And thought of the Grantline Moon Expedition stabbed at me. George
Prince––Anita’s brother––he whom I had been told to watch. This renegade––associate
of dubious Martians, plotting God knows what.
I saw, upon the
adjoining door, “A 20, George Prince.” I listened. In the humming stillness of
the ship’s interior there was no sound from these cabins. A 20 was without
windows, I knew. But Anita’s room had a window and a door which gave upon the
deck. I went through the lounge, out its arch, and walked the deck length. The
deck door and window of A 22 were closed and dark.
The ten-foot-wide
deck was dim with white starlight from the side ports. Chairs were here, but
they were all empty. From the bow windows of the arching dome a flood of
moonlight threw long, slanting shadows down the deck. At the corner where the
superstructure ended, I thought I saw a figure lurking as though watching me. I
went that way, but it vanished.
I turned the
corner, went the width of the ship to the other side. There was no one in sight
save the observer on his spider bridge, high in the bow network, and the second
officer, on duty on the turret balcony almost directly over me.
As I stood and
listened, I suddenly heard footsteps. From the direction of the bow a figure
came. Purser Johnson.
He greeted me.
“Cooling off, Gregg?”
“Yes,” I said.
He went past me
and turned into the smoking room door nearby.
I stood a moment
at one of the deck windows, gazing at the stars; and for no reason at all I
realized I was tense. Johnson was a great one for his regular sleep––it was
wholly unlike him to be roaming about the ship at such an hour. Had he been
watching me? I told myself it was nonsense. I was suspicious of everyone,
everything, this voyage.
I heard another
step. Captain Carter appeared from his chart-room which stood in the center of
the narrowing open deck space near the bow. I joined him at once.
“Who was that?”
he half-whispered.
“Johnson.”
“Oh, yes.” He
fumbled in his uniform; his gaze swept the moonlit deck. “Gregg––take this.” He
handed me a small metal box. I stuffed it at once into my shirt.
“An insulator,”
he added, swiftly. “Snap is in his office. Take it to him, Gregg. Stay with
him––you’ll have a measure of security––and you can help him to make the
photographs.” He was barely whispering. “I won’t be with you––no use making it
look as though we were doing anything unusual. If your graphs show anything––or
if Snap picks up any message––bring it to me.” He added aloud, “Well, it will
be cool enough presently, Gregg.”
He sauntered away
toward his chart-room.
“By heavens, what
a relief!” Snap murmured as the current went on. We had wired his cubby with
the insulator; within its barrage we could at last talk with a degree of
freedom.
“You’ve seen
George Prince, Gregg?”
“No. He’s
assigned A 20. But I saw his sister. Snap, no one ever mentioned––”
Snap had heard of
her, but he hadn’t known that she was listed for this voyage. “A real beauty,
so I’ve heard. Accursed shame for a decent girl to have a brother like that.”
I could agree
with him there, but I made no comment.
It was now 6 A.
M. Snap had been busy all night with routine cosmo-radios from the earth, following
our departure. He had a pile of them beside him. Many were for the passengers;
but anything that savored of a code was barred.
“Nothing queer
looking?” I suggested.
“No. Not a
thing.”
We were at this
time no more than some sixty-five thousand miles from the moon’s surface. The
Planetara presently would swing upon her direct course for Mars. There was
nothing which could cause passenger comment in this close passing of the moon;
normally we used the satellite’s attraction to give us additional starting
speed.
It was now or
never that a message would come from Grantline. He was supposed to be upon this
earthward side of the moon. While Snap had rushed through with his routine, I
had searched the moon surface with our glass, as I knew Carter was searching
it––and also the observer in his tower, very possibly.
But there was
nothing. Copernicus and Kepler lay in full sunlight. The heights of the lunar
mountains, the depths of the barren, empty seas were etched black and white,
clear and clean. Grim, forbidding desolation, this unchanging moon! In romance,
moonlight may shimmer and sparkle to light a lover’s smile; but the reality of
the moon is cold and bleak. There was nothing to show my prying eyes where the
intrepid Grantline might be.
“Nothing at all,
Snap.”
And Snap’s helio
mirrors, attuned for an hour now to pick up the faintest signal, were
motionless.
“If he has
concentrated any appreciable amount of radio-active ore,” said Snap, “we should
get an impulse from its Gamma rays.”
But our receiving
shield was dark, untouched. We tried taking hydrogen photographic impressions
of the visible moon surface. A sequence of them, with stereoscopic lenses,
forty-eight to the second. Our mirror-grid gave the magnified images; the
spectro-heliograph, with its wave-length selection, pictured the
mountain-levels, and slowly descended into the deepest seas.
There was
nothing.
Yet in those moon
caverns––a million million recesses amid the crags of that tumbled, barren
surface––the pin-point of movement which might have been Grantline’s expedition
could so easily be hiding! Could he have the ore insulated, fearing its Gamma
rays would betray its presence to hostile watchers?
Or might disaster
have come to him? Or he might not be upon this hemisphere of the moon at all...
My imagination,
sharpened by fancy of a lurking menace which seemed everywhere about the
Planetara this voyage, ran rife with fears for Johnny Grantline. He had
promised to communicate this voyage. It was now, or perhaps never.
Six-thirty came and
passed. We were well beyond the earth’s shadow now. The firmament blazed with
its vivid glories; the sun behind us was a ball of yellow-red leaping flames.
The earth hung, opened to a huge, dull-red half-sphere.
We were within
some forty thousand miles of the moon. Giant white ball––all of its disc
visible to the naked eye. It poised over the bow, and presently, as the
Planetara swung upon her course for Mars, it shifted sidewise. The light of it
glared white and dazzling in our tiny side windows.
Snap, with his
habitual red celluloid eyeshade shoved high on his forehead, worked over our
instruments.
“Gregg!”
The receiving
shield was glowing a trifle! Gamma rays were bombarding it! It glowed, gleamed
phosphorescent, and the audible recorder began sounding its tiny tinkling
murmurs.
Gamma rays! Snap
sprang to the dials. The direction and strength were soon obvious. A richly
radio-active ore body, of considerable size, was concentrated upon this
hemisphere of the moon! It was unmistakable.
“He’s got it,
Gregg! He’s––”
The tiny helio
mirrors began quivering. Snap exclaimed triumphantly, “Here he comes! By God,
the message at last! Bar off that light!”
I flung on the
absorbers. The moonlight bathing the little room went into them and darkness
sprang around us. Snap fumbled at his instrument board. Actinic light showed
dimly in the quivering, thumbnail mirrors. Two of them. They hung poised on
their cobweb wires, infinitely sensitive to the infra-red light-rays Grantline
was sending from the moon. The mirrors in a moment began swinging. On the scale
across the room the actinic beams from them were magnified into sweeps of
light.
The message!
Snap spelled it
out, decoded it.
“Success! Stop
for ore on your return voyage. Will give you our location later. Success beyond
wildest hopes––”
The mirrors hung
motionless. The shield, where the Gamma rays were bombarding, went suddenly
dark.
Snap murmured,
“That’s all. He’s got the ore! ‘Success beyond wildest hopes.’ That must mean
an enormous quantity of it available!”
We were sitting
in darkness, and abruptly I became aware that across our open window, where the
insulation barrage was flung, the air was faintly hissing. An interference
there! I saw a tiny swirl of purple sparks. Someone––some hostile ray from the
deck beneath us, or from the spider bridge that led to our little room––someone
out there trying to pry in!
Snap impulsively
reached for the absorbers to let in the outside light––it was all darkness to
us outside. But I checked him.
“Wait!” I cut off
our barrage, opened our door and stepped to the narrow metal bridge.
“Wait, Snap! You
stay there.” I added aloud, “Well, Snap, I’m going to bed. Glad you’ve cleaned
up that batch of work.”
I banged the door
upon him. The lacework of metal bridges and ladders seemed empty. I gazed up to
the dome, and forward and aft. Twenty feet beneath me was the metal roof of the
cabin superstructure. Below it, both sides of the deck showed. All patched with
moonlight.
No one visible
down there. I descended a ladder. The deck was empty. But in the silence
something was moving! Footsteps moving away from me down the deck! I followed;
and suddenly I was running. Chasing something I could hear, but could not see.
It turned into the smoking room.
I burst in. And a
real sound smothered the phantom. Johnson the purser was sitting here alone in
the dimness. He was smoking. I noticed that his cigar held a long, frail ash.
It could not have been him I was chasing. He was sitting there quite calmly. A
thick-necked, heavy fellow, easily out of breath. But he was breathing calmly
now.
He sat up with
amazement at my wild-eyed appearance, and the ash jarred from his cigar.
“Gregg! What in
the devil––”
I tried to grin.
“I’m on my way to bed––worked all night helping Snap with those damn Earth
messages.”
I went past him,
out the door into the main interior corridor. It was the only way the invisible
prowler could have gone. But I was too late now––I could hear nothing. I dashed
forward into the main lounge. It was empty, dim and silent, a silence broken
presently by a faint click––a stateroom door hastily closing. I swung and found
myself in a tiny transverse passage. The twin doors of A 22 and A 20 were
before me.
The invisible
eavesdropper had gone into one of these rooms! I listened at each of the
panels, but there was only silence within.
The interior of
the ship was suddenly singing with the steward’s siren––the call to awaken the
passengers. It startled me. I moved swiftly away. But as the siren shut off, in
the silence I heard a soft, musical voice:
“Wake up,
Anita––I think that’s the breakfast call.”
And her answer:
“All right, George. I hear it.”
CHAPTER IV - A Burn on a
Martian Arm
I did not appear
at that morning meal. I was exhausted and drugged with lack of sleep. I had a
moment with Snap, to tell him what had occurred. Then I sought out Carter. He
had his little chart-room insulated. And we were cautious. I told him what Snap
and I had learned: the Gamma rays from the moon, proving that Grantline had
concentrated a considerable ore-body. I also told him the message from
Grantline.
“We’ll stop on
the way back, as he directs, Gregg.” He bent closer to me. “At Ferrok-Shahn I’m
going to bring back a cordon of Interplanetary Police. The secret will be out,
of course, when once we stop at the moon. We have no right, even now, to be
flying this vessel as unguarded as it is.”
He was very
solemn. And he was grim when I told him of the invisible eavesdropper.
“You think he
overheard Grantline’s message?”
“I don’t know,” I
said.
“Who was it? You
seem to feel it was George Prince?”
“Yes.”
I was convinced
that the prowler had gone into A 20. When I mentioned the purser, who seemed to
have been watching me earlier in the night, and again was sitting in the
smoking room when the eavesdropper fled past, Carter looked startled.
“Johnson is all
right, Gregg.”
“Is he? Does he
know anything about this Grantline affair?”
“No––no,” said
the captain hastily. “You haven’t mentioned it, have you?”
“Of course I
haven’t. I’ve been wondering why Johnson didn’t hear that eavesdropper. I could
hear him when I was chasing him. But Johnson sat perfectly unmoved and let him
go by. What was he sitting there for, anyway, at that hour of the morning?”
“You’re too
suspicious, Gregg. Overwrought. But you’re right––we can’t be too careful. I’m
going to have that Prince suite searched when I catch it unoccupied. Passengers
don’t ordinarily travel with invisible cloaks. Go to bed, Gregg––you need a
rest.”
I went to my
cabin. It was located aft, on the stern deck-space, near the stern watch-tower.
A small metal room, with a desk, a chair and bunk. I made sure no one was in
it. I sealed the lattice grill and the door, set the alarm trigger against any
opening of them, and went to bed.
The siren for the
mid-day meal awakened me. I had slept heavily. I felt refreshed. And hungry.
I found the
passengers already assembled at my table when I arrived in the dining salon. It
was a low-vaulted metal room of blue and yellow tube-lights. At the sides its
oval windows showed the deck, with its ports of the dome-side, through which a
vista of the starry firmament was visible. We were well on our course to Mars.
The moon had dwindled to a pin-point of light beside the crescent earth. And
behind them our sun blazed, visually the largest orb in the heavens. It was
some sixty-eight million miles from the earth to Mars, this voyage. A flight,
under ordinary circumstances, of some ten days.
There were five
tables in the dining salon, each with eight seats. Snap and I had one of the
tables. We sat at the ends, with three passengers on each of the sides.
Snap was in his
seat when I arrived. He eyed me down the length of the table.
“Good morning,
Gregg. We missed you at breakfast. Not pressure-sick, I hope?”
There were three
passengers already seated at our table––all men. Snap, in a gay mood,
introduced me.
“This is our
third officer, Gregg Haljan. Big, handsome fellow, isn’t he? And as pleasant as
he is good-looking. Gregg, this is Sero Ob Hahn.”
I met the keen,
dark-eyed somber gaze of a Venus man of middle age. A small, slim, graceful
man, with sleek black hair. His pointed face, accentuated by the pointed beard,
was pallid. He wore a white and purple robe; upon his breast was a huge
platinum ornament, a device like a star and cross entwined.
“I am happy to
meet you, sir.” His voice was soft and sleek.
“Ob Hahn,” I
repeated. “I should have heard of you, no doubt. But––”
A smile plucked
at his thin, gray lips. “That is the error of mine, not yours. My mission is that
all the universe shall hear of me.”
“He’s preaching
the religion of the Venus Mystics,” Snap explained.
“And this
enlightened gentleman,” said Ob Hahn ironically, “has just termed it fetishism.
The ignorance––”
“Oh, I say!”
protested the man at Ob Hahn’s side. “I mean, you seem to think I intended
something opprobrious. As a matter of fact––”
“We’ve an
argument, Gregg,” laughed Snap. “This is Sir Arthur Coniston, an English
gentleman, lecturer and sky-trotter––that is, he will be a sky-trotter; he tells
us he plans a number of voyages.”
The tall
Englishman in his white linen suit bowed acknowledgment. “My compliments, Mr.
Haljan. I hope you have no strong religious convictions, else we will make your
table here very miserable!”
The third
passenger had evidently kept out of the argument. Snap introduced him as Rance
Rankin. An American––a quiet, blond fellow of thirty-five or forty.
I ordered my
breakfast and let the argument go on.
“Won’t make me
miserable,” said Snap. “I love an argument. You said, Sir Arthur?...
“I mean to say, I
think I said too much. Mr. Rankin, you are more diplomatic.”
Rankin laughed.
“I am a magician,” he said to me. “A theatrical entertainer. I deal in
tricks––how to fool an audience––” His keen, amused gaze was on Ob Hahn. “This
gentleman from Venus and I have too much in common to argue.”
“A nasty one!”
the Englishman exclaimed. “By Jove! Really, Mr. Rankin, you’re a bit too
cruel!”
I could see we
were doomed to have turbulent meals this voyage. I like to eat in quiet; arguing
passengers always annoy me. There were still three seats vacant at our table; I
wondered who would occupy them. I soon learned the answer––for one seat at
least. Rankin said calmly:
“Where is the
little Venus girl this meal?” His glance went to the empty seat at my right
hand. “The Venza––wasn’t that her name? She and I are destined for the same
theater in Ferrok-Shahn.”
So Venza was to
sit beside me. It was good news. Ten days of a religious argument three times a
day would be intolerable. But the cheerful Venza would help.
“She never eats
the mid-day meal,” said Snap. “She’s on the deck, having orange juice. I guess
it’s the old gag about diet, eh?”
My attention
wandered about the salon. Most of the seats were occupied. At the captain’s
table I saw the objects of my search. George Prince and his sister sat one on
each side of the captain. I saw George Prince in the life now as a man who
looked hardly twenty-five. He was at this moment evidently in a gay mood. His
clean-cut, handsome profile, with its poetic dark curls, was turned toward me.
There seemed little of the villain about him.
And I saw Anita
Prince now as a dark-haired, black eyed little beauty, in feature resembling
her brother very strongly. She presently finished her meal. She rose, with him
after her. She was dressed in Earth fashion––white blouse and dark jacket,
wide, knee-length trousers of gray, with a red sash her only touch of color.
She went past me, flashed me her smile and nod.
My heart was
pounding. I answered her greeting, and met George Prince’s casual gaze. He,
too, smiled, as though to signify that his sister had told him of the service I
had done her. Or was his smile an ironical memory of how he had eluded me this
morning when I chased him?
I gazed after his
small, white-suited figure as he followed Anita from the salon. And thinking of
her, I prayed that Carter and Halsey might be wrong. Whatever plotting against
the Grantline Expedition might be going on, I hoped that George Prince was
innocent of it. Yet I knew in my heart it was a futile hope. Prince had been
that eavesdropper outside the helio-room. I could not really doubt it. But that
his sister must be ignorant of what he was doing, I was sure.
My attention was
brought suddenly back to the reality of our table. I heard Ob Hahn’s silky
voice:
“We passed quite
close to the moon last night, Mr. Dean.”
“Yes,” said Snap.
“We did, didn’t we? Always do––it’s a technical problem of the exigencies of
interstellar navigation. Explain it to them, Gregg––you’re an expert.”
I waved it away
with a laugh. There was a brief silence. I could not help noticing Sir Arthur
Coniston’s queer look, and I think I have never seen so keen a glance as Rance
Rankin shot at me. Were all these people aware of Grantline’s treasure on the moon?
It suddenly seemed so. I wished fervently at that instant that the ten days of
this voyage were over and we were safely at Ferrok-Shahn. Captain Carter was
absolutely right. Coming back we would have a cordon of interplanetary police
aboard.
Sir Arthur broke
the awkward silence. “Magnificent sight, the moon, from so close a
viewpoint––though I was too much afraid of pressure-sickness to be up to see
it.”
I had nearly
finished my hasty meal when another incident shocked me. The two other
passengers at our table came in and took their seats. A Martian girl and man.
The girl had the seat at my left, with the man beside her. All Martians are
tall. This girl was about my own height––that is, six feet, two inches. The man
was seven feet or more. Both wore the Martian outer robe. The girl flung hers
back. Her limbs were encased in pseudo-mail. She looked, as all Martians like
to look, a very warlike Amazon. But she was a pretty girl. She smiled at me
with a keen-eyed, direct gaze.
“Mr. Dean said at
breakfast that you were big and handsome. You are.”
They were brother
and sister, these Martians. Snap introduced them as Set Miko and Setta Moa.[5]
This Miko was,
from our Earth standards, a tremendous, brawny giant. Not spindly, like most
Martians, this fellow, for all his seven feet of height, was almost heavy-set.
He wore a plaited leather jerkin beneath his robe, and knee pants of leather
out of which his lower legs showed as gray, hairy pillars of strength. He had
come into the salon with a swagger, his sword-ornament clanking.
“A pleasant
voyage so far,” he said to me as he started his meal. His voice had the heavy,
throaty rasp characteristic of the Martian. He spoke perfect English––both
Martians and Venus people are by heritage extraordinary linguists. Miko and his
sister Moa had a touch of Martian accent, worn almost away by living for some
years in Great-New York.
The shock to me
came within a few minutes. Miko, absorbed in attacking his meal, inadvertently
pushed back his robe to bare his forearm. An instant only, then it dropped
again to his wrist. But in that instant I had seen, upon the gray flesh, a thin
sear turned red. A very recent burn––as though a pencil-ray of heat had caught
his arm.
My mind flung
back. Only last night in the City Corridor, Snap and I had been followed by a
Martian. I had shot at him with the heat-ray; I thought I had hit him on the
arm. Was this the mysterious Martian who had followed us from Halsey’s office?
CHAPTER V - Venza the Venus
Girl
It was shortly
after that mid-day meal when I encountered Venza sitting on the starlit deck. I
had been in the bow observatory; taken my routine castings of our position and
worked them out. I was, I think, of the Planetara’s officers the most expert
handler of the mathematical mechanical calculators. The locating of our
position and charting the trajectory of our course was, under ordinary
circumstances, about all I had to do. And it took only a few minutes each
twelve hours.
I had a moment
with Carter in the isolation of his chart-room.
“This voyage!
Gregg, I’m getting like you––too fanciful. We’ve a normal group of passengers,
apparently; but I don’t like the look of any of them. That Ob Hahn, at your
table––”
“Snaky-looking
fellow,” I commented. “He and the Englishman are great on arguments. Did you
have Prince’s cabin searched?”
My breath hung on
his answer.
“Yes. Nothing
unusual among his things. We searched both his room and his sister’s.”
I did not follow
that up. Instead I told him about the burn on Miko’s thick gray arm.
He stared. “I
wish to the Almighty we were at Ferrok-Shahn. Gregg, to-night when the
passengers are asleep, come here to me. Snap will be here, and Dr. Frank. We
can trust him.”
“He knows
about––about the Grantline treasure?”
“Yes. And so do
Balch and Blackstone.”
Balch and
Blackstone were our first and second officers.
“We’ll all meet
here, Gregg––say about the zero hour. We must take some precautions.”
He suddenly felt
he should say no more now. He dismissed me.
I found Venza
seated alone in a secluded corner of the starlit deck. A porthole, with the
black heavens and the blazing stars, was before her. There was an empty seat
nearby.
“Hola-lo,[6]
Gregg! Sit here with me. I have been wondering when you would come after me.”
I sat down beside
her. “What are you doing––going to Mars, Venza? I’m glad to see you.”
“Many thanks. But
I am glad to see you, Gregg. So handsome a man... Do you know, from Venus to
the earth and I have no doubt on all of Mars, no man will please me more.”
“Glib tongue,” I
laughed. “Born to flatter the male––every girl of your world.” And I added
seriously, “You don’t answer my question? What takes you to Mars?”
“Contract. By the
stars, what else? Of course, a chance to make a voyage with you––”
“Don’t be silly,
Venza.”
I enjoyed her. I
gazed at her small, slim figure gracefully reclining in the deck chair. Her
long, gray robe parted––by design, I have no doubt––to display her shapely,
satin-sheathed legs. Her black hair was coiled in a heavy knot at the back of
her neck; her carmined lips were parted with a mocking, alluring smile. The
exotic perfume of her enveloped me.
She glanced at me
sidewise from beneath her sweeping black lashes.
“Be serious,” I
added.
“I am serious.
Sober. Intoxicated by you, but sober.”
I said, “What
sort of a contract?”
“A theater in
Ferrok-Shahn. Good money, Gregg. I’m to be there a year.” She sat up to face
me. “There’s a fellow here on the Planetara, Rance Rankin, he calls himself. At
our table––a big, good-looking blond American. He says he is a magician. Ever
hear of him?”
“That’s what he
told me. No, I never heard of him.”
“Nor did I. And I
thought I had heard of everyone of any importance. He is listed for the same
theater where I’m going. Nice sort of fellow.” She paused, and added suddenly,
“If he’s a professional entertainer, I’m a motor-oiler.”
It startled me.
“Why do you say that?”
Instinctively my
gaze swept the deck. An Earth woman and child and a small Venus man were in
sight, but not within earshot.
“Why do you look
so furtive?” she retorted. “Gregg, there’s something strange about this voyage.
I’m no fool, nor you, and you know it as well as I do.”
“Rance Rankin––”
I prompted.
She leaned closer
toward me. “He could fool you. But not me––I’ve known too many real magicians.”
She grinned. “I challenged him to trick me. You should have seen him trying to
evade!”
“Do you know Ob
Hahn?” I interrupted.
She shook her
head. “Never heard of him. But he told me plenty at breakfast. By Satan, what a
flow of words that devil-driver can muster! He and the Englishman don’t mesh
very well, do they?”
She stared at me.
I had not answered her grin; my mind was too busy with queer fancies. Halsey’s
words: “Things are not always what they seem––” Were these passengers
masqueraders? Put here by George Prince? And then I thought of Miko the
Martian, and the burn upon his arm.
“Come back,
Gregg! Don’t go wandering off like that!” She dropped her voice to a whisper.
“I’ll be serious. I want to know what in the hell is going on aboard this ship.
I’m a woman, and I’m curious. You tell me.”
“What do you
mean?” I parried.
“I mean a lot of
things. What we’ve just been talking about. And what was the excitement you
were in just before breakfast this morning?”
“Excitement?”
“Gregg, you may
trust me.” For the first time she was wholly serious. Her gaze made sure no one
was within hearing. She put her hand on my arm. I could barely hear her
whisper: “I know they might have a ray upon us––I’ll be careful.”
“They?”
“Anyone.
Something’s going on. You know it––you are in it. I saw you this morning,
Gregg. Wild-eyed, chasing a phantom––”
“You?”
“And I heard the
phantom! A man’s footsteps. A magnetic reflecting invisible cloak. You couldn’t
fool an audience with that––it’s too commonplace. If Rance Rankin tried––”
I gripped her.
“Don’t ramble, Venza! You saw me?”
“Yes. My
stateroom door was open. I was sitting with a cigarillo. I saw the purser in
the smoking room. He was visible from––”
“Wait! Venza,
that prowler went through the smoking room!”
“I know he did. I
could hear him.”
“Did the purser
hear him?”
“Of course. The
purser looked up, followed the sound with his gaze. I thought that was queer.
He never made a move. And then you came along and he acted innocent. Why?
What’s going on, that’s what I want to know!”
I held my breath.
“Venza, where did the prowler run to? Can you––”
She whispered
calmly, “Into A 20. I saw the door open and close––I even think I could see the
blurred outline of him. Those magnetic cloaks!” She added, “Why should George Prince
be sneaking around with you after him? And the purser acting innocent? And who
is this George Prince, anyway?”
The huge Martian,
Miko, with his sister Moa came strolling along the deck. They nodded as theypassed
us.
I whispered, “I
can’t explain anything now. But you’re right, Venza: there is something going
on. Listen! Whatever you learn––anything you encounter which looks
unusual––will you tell me? I––well, I do trust you––really I do!––but the thing
isn’t mine to tell.”
The somber pools
of her eyes were shining. “You are very lovable, Gregg. I won’t question you.”
She was trembling with excitement. “Whatever it is, I want to be in it. Here’s
something I can tell you now. We’ve two high-class gold-leaf gamblers aboard.
Did you know that?”
“No. Who are––”
“Shac and Dud
Ardley. Let me state every detective in Great-New York knows them. They had a
wonderful game with that Englishman, Sir Arthur Coniston, this morning.
Stripped him of half a pound of eight-inch leaves––a neat little stack. A
crooked game, of course. Those fellows are more nimble-fingered than Rance
Rankin ever dared to be!”
I sat staring at
her. She was a mine of information, this girl.
“And Gregg, I
tried my charms on Shac and Dud. Nice men, but dumb. Whatever’s going on,
they’re not in it. They wanted to know what kind of a ship this was. Why?
Because Shac has a cute little eavesdropping microphone of his own. He had it
working in the night last night. He overheard George Prince and that big giant
Miko arguing about the moon!”
I gasped. “Venza,
softer!”
Against all
propriety of this public deck she pretended to drape herself upon me. Her hair
smothered my face as her lips almost touched my ear.
“Something about
treasure on the moon––Shac couldn’t understand what. And they mentioned you. He
didn’t hear what they said because the purser joined them.” Her whispered words
tumbled over one another. “A hundred pounds of gold leaf––that’s the purser’s
price. He’s with them, whatever it is. He promised to do something for them.”
She stopped.
“Well?” I prompted.
“That’s all.
Shac’s current was interrupted.”
“Tell him to try
it again, Venza! I’ll talk with him. No! I’d better let him alone. Can you get
him to keep his mouth shut?”
“I think he might
do anything I told him. He’s a man.”
“Find out what you can.”
She sat away from
me suddenly. “There’s Anita and George Prince.”
They came to the
corner of the deck, but turned back. Venza caught my look. And understood it.
“So you love
Anita Prince so much as that, Gregg?” Venza was smiling. “I wish you––I wish
some man handsome as you would gaze after me like that.”
She turned
solemn. “You may be interested to know that she loves you. I could see it. I
knew it when I mentioned you to her this morning.”
“Me? Why, we’ve
hardly spoken!”
“Is it necessary?
I never heard that it was.”
I could not see
Venza’s face; she stood up suddenly. And when I rose beside her, she whispered,
“We should not be
seen talking so long. I’ll find out what I can.”
I stared after
her slight robed figure as she turned into the lounge archway and vanished.
